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by lelandfe 1713 days ago
I was in the UK recently and - if you can believe it - there was a car on the block I stayed whose plates contained 666.

Also, have a feelin you meant to do 1312. What’s the issue with 4444, though?

4 comments

> What’s the issue with 4444, though?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraphobia

Woah, had no idea!

> When Beijing lost its bid to stage the 2000 Olympic Games, it was speculated that the reason China did not pursue a bid for the following 2004 Games was due to the unpopularity of the number 4 in China. Instead, the city waited another four years, and would eventually host the 2008 Olympic Games, the number eight being a lucky number in Chinese culture.

Thought this was particularly interesting.

In Germany, where you can request number plate combinations (as long as they are free and follow a few roles), 666 is a pretty common combination amongst young drivers.

> What’s the issue with 4444

4 is pronounced similar to "death" in sino-japanese languages and dialects.

Also, as you have the muncipality-shortcut at the beginning, and then two user-definable letters, you freqently see "rude" combinations, and noone bats an eye. BIT-CH, MON-GO, ANA-L, DIL-DO. (And those are just the combinations that are understandable in english which I saw when driving). I'll never forget the face of the guy at the Zulassungsstelle when I was there with a friend who wanted COC-K-6969. He got it it, btw. When I tried some years later, AC-DC-666 sadly was already taken.
People explained 4444, with 1313 I was thinking of the equivalent for superstitious westerners afraid of the number 13.
What’s the issue with 1312?
it spells ACAB if you match each number with the letter in the alphabet at this index (I realized that after seeing a bunch of 1312 tags around where I live)
What's the issue with ACAB?